The relief I felt from landing in the stream was unlike anything I had ever felt. I hadn’t even realized how thirsty I was! The cool, gentle pressure washing over my burned thorax and dry throat felt like the soft embrace of a thousand angels.
Well, I assumed. Apparently, angels weren’t a thing if my death was anything to go by.
“So soothing! You know, I think we might be alright. Thank you for saving my- no, our life, Enno.”
“Aw, thanks, Queen. Sucks that something terrible is about to happen exactly ’cause you said that!” I exclaimed between prolonged drinks of water.
I was only half joking. As relieving as the water was, I tried my best to stay alert. This dead forest had, barring the thunder, been entirely silent from the moment I woke up. Even while flying around, I didn’t hear anything or see anything move. The problem was, this was the exact type of situation where I would let down my guard and get attacked by a crazy forest troll or something.
“With our injuries treated, I would say we have a chance. If we start a new hive, survival would be trivial!”
“Uh. Sure. I’ll just give birth to a bunch of babies and feed them some ash.”
Oh. I hadn’t thought about it, but laying eggs was essentially my whole purpose as a queen bee. Thankfully it seemed like I could use abilities to do it instead of… typical methods. In any case, making a hive was definitely the way to go regarding safety.
Would probably still be super weird, though.
I could only assume it would benefit me considering my new species, but something more immediately important required my attention.
[Name: (Unnamed)]
[Age: 1 months]
[Subtype: Queen]
[Status: Severely Wounded]
[Abilities:
* Create Egg (Lv.1)
* Combined Mind
* Queen Piping (Lv.1)
* Venomous Stinger
]
[Mind: 10th Degree]
[Tapped Mind: 0% / 95%]
[Mind Locks:
* Life (5%)
]
The only change was my status in a good way, thankfully. Well, information is power, so learning more about what I can do is priority numero uno. A bit of experimenting taught me that there wasn’t much I could inspect for more info. My Subtype, Abilities, Tapped Mind, and Mind Locks could be expanded to give more detail, but that was it.
“I think learning more about Creating offspring would be very beneficial.”
Seriously? Queen’s obsession with this hive thing was only getting stronger.
“Can you be quiet for a second? I just want to learn more about what I can do,” my agitation grew, “In fact, I think I would like you to be quiet for a long while. Since I can’t be alone ever again, I would at least like some quiet when I need it.”
My words came out harsher than expected, and the sudden disappearance of the almost constant gentle meaningless humming told me I might have gone too far. No matter.
With that familiar feeling in my stomach, I carefully inspected everything I could in my menu.
[Subtype: Queen
Of the Bee species. A matriarchal figure that births offspring of the speecies and manages the collective conscious ‘hive.’
Capabilities include the creation, communication, control of offspring, and a great sense of humor.
]
Nothing crazy there. Nope. I was a Queen bee, and I… birth things.
Fun. Speaking of…
[Create Egg:
Level 1
Acquired by: Birth
Using mass and Mind, create an egg that will hatch into a member of your species.
Subtype Options:
* Simple Worker: A drone with no unique capabilities. (Min Mind Tap: 0.5%)
* Simple Warrior: A drone built for combat. (Min Mind Tap: 0.75%)
Level up: Unlock 2 subtype options
]
The immediate problem I noticed is the mention of mass to create eggs. That meant I needed food to even start thinking about making a hive, so Queen’s desperation was moot until I found some food.
[Combined Mind:
Acquired by: Attaining the impossible feat of hosting multiple Minds in one body
Impossibly, you have multiple Minds within your body. This unique trait caught the gods’ attention, and this Ability was granted. Efficiency of Mind = Base Efficiency x Number of Minds.
Mind Efficiency: 2x
]
Excuse me? If my eyes could bulge, they would fall out of my head. Of course, I had no frame of reference for this Ability. For all I knew, doubling Mind efficiency amounted to practically nothing.
But I wasn’t about to complain about a free power boost!
Most of the other Abilities felt pretty boring in comparison.
[Queen Piping:
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Level 1
Acquired by: Birth
Acoustic signals empowered by Mind. Communicate without a direct mind connection.
Level up: increase the efficiency of piping
]
[Venomous Stinger:
Acquired by: Birth
A natural weapon empowered by Mind. Tapping Mind increases the potency of venom.
]
Simple abilities with simple uses, nothing to get excited about. Looking at my Abilities did raise some questions. What was the point of some of them exactly? If I didn’t have the Stinger Ability, would I not be able to sting? So would Queen have been born without a stinger?
Also, why list how an Ability was obtained? Was that something important about Abilties?
[Tapped Mind:
Current Mind capacity: 95%
Currently Tapped Mind: 0%
Tapped Breakdown:
* None
]
Honestly, Tapped Mind only raised more questions about Abilities. Clearly, Mind was some sort of psychic power that I had judging by my assisted flying. Nothing indicated that I had obtained it somehow, and Queen’s admittedly limited knowledge about Mind implied she was born with it. So I could just use psychic superpowers without needing Abilities at all. Did everything have psychic powers in this world?
[Life:
The essence of existence. 5% of a living being’s Mind is locked to maintain Life.
WARNING: If this Lock is Deactivated or changed, you will die.
]
Oh. Well, that answers that.
I took a closer look at Mind Locks. If 5% of my mind was ‘reserved’ by the Lock, what other locks could I make?
Cringing in anticipation, I slowly ascended above the river water, the cooling stream no longer soothing my burns. Despite the renewed pain, I once again inspected my menu.
[Tapped Mind:
Current Mind capacity: 95%
Currently Tapped Mind: 1%
Tapped Breakdown:
* Floating (1%)
]
Alright, so far, so good.
Now, the idea was to create a Mind Lock that reserved 1% of my Mind for floating. Even Tapping that 1% required concentration. Since I wasn’t exactly concentrating on living (well, considering my injuries, maybe a little), perhaps I wouldn’t need to focus on floating with Mind?
Only one problem. I had absolutely no idea how to make a Mind Lock.
So far, the System of this world had been incredibly intuitive, responding more to my instinct and intentions than keywords or instruction. I mean, I was currently floating in the air just by thinking about it! Maybe making Locks was just as easy? I thought really hard about making a Lock, and a pressure mounted in my brain.
It was working! Suddenly my stomach lurched. Wait! The pressure broke my concentration!
I hit the riverbed with a thud as white-hot fire exploded across my body. I hadn’t fallen very far, but with injuries as bad as mine, that didn’t exactly matter.
My burns were aggravated as I rolled around in pain, worsening the experience. I wasn’t exactly great at being in mortal danger.
“I cannot tell if you were sent to save my life or to torture me.”
Queen’s humming reappeared for a moment before immediately going silent. Seems like she simply couldn’t help herself from making that comment. She reminded me of my coworkers in a way. She just couldn’t give up.
As the pain subsided, I refocused my efforts on creating the Mind Lock, making sure to stay solidly on my feet. Until smacking into the ground, I hadn’t considered the fact that maybe I didn’t want to be floating all the time.
Regardless, I knew the floating Mind Lock could work from the pressure in my brain, so it was as good as anything to experiment with. Besides, if the Life description was anything to go by, then Locks could be changed or deleted anyways.
It took much longer for the pressure to build this time as I thought about creating the Lock. Maybe creating a Lock on something you were already doing was easier? Or was it tougher to make a Lock purely with imagination, so knowing or experiencing the desired effects made it easier to create?
The pressure built until it became closer to a headache, and a moment later, a single click echoed in my brain, and the pressure suddenly disappeared.
I suddenly felt weightless. I tried carefully rising into the air a little, abruptly stopped focusing on floating, and stayed hovering in place. Success!
[Tapped Mind:
Current Mind capacity: 94%
Currently Tapped Mind: 0%
Tapped Breakdown:
* None
]
[Mind Locks:
* Life (5%)
* Float (1%)
]
Everything was going smoothly. Almost… too smoothly. I focused on the Float Lock, and a new interface popped up.
[Lock: Float
{Disable - Modify - Delete}
]
What a flexible System! I modified the Lock to use less Mind. I had to concentrate on doing so, making it clear that Locks could only be messed with if I was safe.
In fact, Modifying the Lock seemed to disable it during the process. In other words, I fell again like an idiot.
Disabling did exactly what it said. I ensured I was barely above the ground before the test this time. Disabling the Lock even gave me back the 1% missing from my Mind capacity. Finally, I tried deleting the Lock.
[Warning: You are about to delete a Lock. Confirm?]
Oh, that was nice. Sure, deleting a lock would require you to specifically seek out its deletion, but I guess you could accidentally delete a Lock in your sleep. As if. This System just felt weird at times.
I confirmed the deletion. Creating a Lock took significant time, effort, and concentration, so disabling them seemed much more practical. Why not just make a ton of Locks and disable them? In this case, I wasn’t exactly in desperate need of auto-flight. I could afford to delete it for the purposes of science.
Of course, I immediately realized that flying around to search for food would be easier if I could automate it at least a little, so I recreated the Lock.
Right. Next on the survival checklist was food. Quenching my insane thirst only made me realize how hungry I was. Eating would also kill two birds, considering I needed mass to start making eggs.
Ah yes, I was incredibly excited to lay magic fucking bee eggs as a human dude who was just trying to get by until recently.
As much as it pained me to admit, making some drones to ‘automate’ food gathering, protection, exploration, and shelter construction was just too convenient. An army of little bee drones who did exactly what I told them to do? Absolutely, yes. Reminded me of a certain factory game’s little robots that cost me years of my life…
Unfortunately, another issue crossed my mind.
“Uh, Queen? What exactly do you eat?”
Silence.
“Oh, right. Queen, I’m sorry about what I said before. I’m not used to being with other people for so long, so I was starting to get antsy,” I sighed. The feeling in my stomach returned.
“I… I need you. To survive. This whole situation is fucking crazy, and I just wanted a bit of normalcy, but I went too far,” my feelings poured out, uncontrollably flowing straight from the gross stomach feeling, “I don’t usually open up to people, but I guess I have no choice now do I? For better or worse, we’re stuck together. So, please. Help me- no, help us survive. I hadn’t considered how you must feel trapped in your own head, so I promise I’ll help you with what you want. I guess… I’m not the only one who got a second chance.”
I held my breath. I hadn’t spoken that much to someone in… well, a very long time. Silence. My nerves kept building as Queen stayed quiet.
“...Jelly.”
I blinked. Or, tried. I’d have to get used to my new face.
“Jelly?”
“Jelly.”
“Queen… thank you.”
“I’ll be holding you to that promise, by the way. About helping me achieve what I want.”
“Well, I guess that’s fair enough. Now,” I triumphantly stood on wobbly legs, “Where the hell am I supposed to get Jelly?!”
“Ah. Good point. Usually, the workers brought me jelly on their heads, but there are no workers left,” Queen paused, humming thoughtfully, “There should be benefits to our strong Mind. Surely we could eat anything nutritious, providing it is not actively harmful.”
Hm. As far as I could think, animals can have pretty delicate diets, so a bee eating a cheeseburger didn’t exactly sound like a genius idea.
Man, a cheeseburger would be nice. The only kind of meat around were well-done forest beasts.
Actually…
“How does meat treat your stomach?”
“Meat…? It does not sound particularly appetizing, but neither do my instincts warn against it. Would those murdered forest creatures be meat?”
“Exactly! This doesn’t just solve our food problem; it eliminates it completely!”
I was getting excited. A clean source of water. Food as far as the eye could see. With a start like this, we wouldn’t just survive. We could thrive!
I floated over to the nearest blackened lump, vaguely shaped like a pig or boar. Compared to me, it was huge, three or four times bigger, at least. I wasn’t exactly a fan of burned meat, but maybe somewhere under the surface, this little piggy had some tastier bits.
I tried scraping some char off with my leg with little success, switching to my wicked stinger. My stomach rumbled. Well, maybe this bee body wouldn’t hate the taste of char?
Hungrily I chomped down on the lump, barely able to contain my appetite. Or break the tough hide. Riiiiight, eating the meat would probably be better than leathery hide. Had to open it up somehow...
The corpse moved.
I snapped to attention, slowly backing away from the body as squishing noises broke the silence. Before I could do much else, the corpse burst open. A huge rat with rows of pointy teeth and sharp-looking fur emerged and locked eyes with me.
Looks like I interrupted lunchtime, and this guy didn’t seem intent on sharing.
Oops.